


A Book Once Begun

by fengirl88



Category: The Marlows - Antonia Forest
Genre: Books, Community: fan_flashworks, Gen, Libraries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 05:50:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2761997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/pseuds/fengirl88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The consequences of Nicola's book-smuggling don't end with Miss Cromwell's reading-list.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Book Once Begun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lilliburlero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/gifts).



> Written for the Contraband challenge at fan_flashworks. This one is for Lilliburlero, with thanks for organizing all the readthroughs at Trennels.

Nicola couldn’t be sorry she’d copped it for smuggling back an extra book from home. And a Limited book at that (Upper Fifths and Sixths only, her sister Ann had said, priggishly refusing to take it on Nicola’s behalf). The conversation with Miss Cromwell when Nicola’s crime came to light had been pretty awkward, especially her question about why Nicola thought the book was Limited – her form mistress was the last person she’d expect to talk to about _that_ (“Because Nico liked men better than he liked women, d’you mean?”). But _The Mask of Apollo_ was worth all that _and_ the reading-list Miss Cromwell had set her as a penance for rule-breaking, even worth having to read Dickens, which Nicola still hated. 

And now she’d finally stodged her way through Crommie’s list and could choose for herself again, it had seemed almost too good to be true, finding _another_ book about Ancient Greece by the same author in Colebridge Public Library. Nicola glared at the cover of her library book, with its striking design of two horses, one black and one white, tossing their heads and pulling at the reins of a chariot, its driver a dark silhouette against the deep blue background. She’d been so excited to find it that she hadn’t even glanced inside before taking it to the desk to be stamped; she could hardly wait to get home and start reading.

As she’d discovered to her dismay, the book wasn’t anything like its cover. These people weren’t Ancient Greeks at all, but a modern family in the middle of breaking apart. Like Edwin and the Doddy lot, Nicola thought, though she couldn’t imagine Chas carrying on the way this boy was doing; it was more like Rose at the station, clinging desperately to her grandmother. If the rest of the book was going to be like this, it’d be even worse than _Dombey and Son_.

It was too late to turn back now, though. Nicola’s private Laws of Reading were very clear on this point: _a book once begun must be read to the end without skipping._ She’d said as much to Karen about _Persuasion_ , the day Karen had come home to announce that she was leaving Oxford to marry Edwin Dodd. How Kay could accuse _Nicola_ of making life complicated for herself, when _she_ was getting hitched to a man more than twice her age, _with_ three children by his first marriage, _and_ who was only free to marry her because his first wife had just died in a plane crash, Nicola really didn’t know.

Thinking of that conversation with Karen, Nicola remembered how deathly boring she’d found _Persuasion_ at first, and how differently she’d come to think of it in the end. Maybe _The Charioteer_ would surprise her too, unlikely as it seemed at the moment. Oh, well. There was nothing for it but to push on. It must be nearly teatime; she’d make herself read until then and then stop for the day.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Book Once Begun [podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4275831) by [Lilliburlero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilliburlero/pseuds/Lilliburlero)




End file.
